Terry Noe

Terry's Story

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Terry "Tommy" Wayne Noe, of Poulsbo, Washington, formerly of Corbin, was born Nov. 7, 1942, and passed away Jan. 19, 2018, following a long illness. He leaves behind his devoted wife, Linda Silas, and one son, Kevin P. Noe and wife, Catherine, of Okemos, Michigan. He also leaves behind many friends and acquaintances who loved him dearly and who will greatly miss him.
Tommy was a member of the Corbin High School graduating class of 1960. Tom was predeceased by his parents, Clifford and Orene Noe, former owners of the A&W Drive-In on 18th Street. In 1961 Tom married CHS classmate, Patti Brewer, and they both attended Eastern Kentucky University, where Tom graduated cum laude with a BS in physics in 1964. He was then offered a NASA fellowship to pursue a PhD at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. At the end of one semester he gave the fellowship back and for the rest of that year taught physics, calculus and general science in the Webb School of Knoxville. Soon after, Tom accepted an engineering job at Texas Instruments in Dallas, and he and Patti moved to Richardson, Texas, where they resided for several years. The couple had one son, Kevin, who is now Director of Symphony Orchestras at Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan.
Tom had many interests, one of which was amateur photography. When Kodak introduced the C-41 commercial color print film developing process, Tom made a small unit which would allow photographers to develop prints in their home darkrooms. Two years later, in 1975, he left TI to manufacture photo-processing machines.
Tom also loved to ride motorcycles and took several cross-country and international trips. He rode all 50 states in the US, traveling to all but Hawaii from his home in Texas. He also traveled more than a dozen other countries on two wheels. From the age of 13 he was never without a motorcycle to ride. He had found freedom there.
As Tom's interest in astronomy developed, he started building his own telescopes; yearning to take one with him on his motorcycle trips, he developed a portable, collapsible telescope, which interest he later developed into a business, (teleporttelescopes.com). As his creativity with telescopes became well known, an important NASA astronaut, Story Musgrave (who hung from the shuttle arm in space to work on the Hubble telescope) came by Tom's house and actually helped Tom assemble one of his telescopes, a visit of which Tom was very proud. (See photo of Tommy and Story at http://teleporttelescopes.com/Images/News/Story_Tom.jpg)
Tom was cremated and a memorial service is tentatively planned on May 27, 2018, at Camp Coho at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas later this year, since most of his friends lived in Texas and attended the festival.